The Shadow Murders by Jussi Adler-Olsen

 

(hb; 2022: ninth book in the Department Q series. Translated from the Danish by William Frost.)

From the inside flap

“On her sixtieth birthday, a woman takes her own life. When the case lands on Detective Carl Mørck’s desk, he can’t imagine what this has to do with Department Q. Copenhagen’s cold cases division, since the cause of death seems apparent. However, his superior, Marcus Jacobsen, is convinced that this suicide is related to an unsolved case that has been plaguing him since 1988.

“At Marcus’s behest, Carl and the Department Q gang—Rose, Assad, and Gordon—reluctantly begin to investigate. And they quickly discover that Marcus is onto something: Every two years for the past three decades, there have been unusual, impeccably timed deaths with connections between them that cannot be ignored, including the mysterious piles of salt at the scenes. As the investigation goes deeper, it emerges that these ‘accidents’ are in fact part of a sinister murder scheme.

“Faced with their toughest case yet, made only more difficult by COVID-19 restrictions and the challenges of their personal lives, the Department Q team must race to find the culprit before the next murder is committed, as it is becoming increasingly clear that the killer is far from finished.”

 

Review

A year or so after the events of Victim 2117, Carl Mørck and the rest of Department Q are still haunted by their pasts, particularly Assad’s family (his wife and children are still fragile after an extensive stint as a terrorist’s hostages) and Mørck, whose 1988 nail-gun case (with others’ planted drug and money evidence) still excites certain police investigators who still want Mørck to turn in his badge. The case that Department Q eventually finds itself investigating is one of manners, murder, manipulation and obsession, and is not initially gripping as previous cases, but the writing is still top-notch and eventually the case becomes more interesting as the tale goes on.  As with previous Department Q novels, this is an immediately engaging (with its familiar-in-a-good-way characters), steady-build and excellent police procedural thriller.